The CDA and VVD said they wanted to prepare the country for the 21st century. But apart from a number of health care and social security reforms, the only real change lies in number of cutbacks, writes Het Financieele Dagblad.

The new cabinet needs over a hundred new measures to achieve an €18bn cut back figure by the end of the next four years. More than half of that number will be realised in the public sector. The benefits system will also be reassessed.
Major reforms of the labour market and the grant system are not part of the new accord, nor is a structural plan to combat road congestion. This means the country’s finances can only be put back on the rails by implementing dozens of smaller measures and raising taxes.
Mark Rutte, who will almost certainly become the new prime minister, denied yesterday that not much had remained of the structural reforms that had been promised. He characterised the social security reforms, which include integrating and cutting back on welfare provisions for young disabled people, their specialised workplaces and benefits, as ‘pretty major’. The healthcare tax benefits will also be drastically reduced.
Rutte also announced the cabinet is working on measures that will prepare the country’s finances for the needs of an ageing population. He claims to have the measures in place that will account for as much as €25bn of the €29bn needed for the purpose.
CPB
The government’s economic policy unit CPB is considerably less optimistic. According to its calculations the figure will be closer to €22bn as VVD and CDA are overestimating the effect of some of the proposed measures. CPB also says that the spending power people on benefits and pensioners will go down by half a percent each year, but will remain unchanged for people in work.
The measures will also see a rise in unemployment of 1.4% in four year’s time. The increase in unemployment benefits will therefore not completely cover the proposed €18bn cutback. However, CPB expects both the unemployment figures and the budget deficit to improve in the longer term.
The CPB figures also show that while health care can count on a net investment, safety and education get nothing at all. Rutte has announced he will free up 1.3bn for the latter by cutting down on bureaucracy, money that will be used to reward teacher excellence and improving teacher training.
Rutte deplores that hardy any changes have been made to the length and the level of unemployment benefits, and redundancy regulations. Although, it had the support of the CDA, the VVD couldn’t see its way clear to implement these changes. The conclusion has to be that Geert Wilders’ PVV refused to comply, an example of its influence on the cabinet.
VNO-NCW
Employers’ organisation VNO-OCW is also disappointed at the lack of labour market reform. Chairman Bernard Wientjes did not want to come down too hard on the new cabinet, however. He is happy with the reinforcement of the economic affairs department and the renewed focus on industry.
Wientjes also made a political comment. ‘We were worried about our international reputation of a cabinet with Wilders in it. But as far as we’re concerned the cabinet consists of two reputable parties and we don’t feel the Dutch image will suffer abroad. Wilders is only there in a supporting role.
‘We can live with that although we will keep an eye on things.’
Chancellor Angela Merkel said earlier this week that she was not happy with the cabinet’s collaboration with the PVV. Whereupon Wilders retorted: ‘Frau Merkel, Sie haben kein Recht.’
This is an unofficial translation